FOOTBALL '98 / Recovering Ellis Absent From Spartans' Booth But Counting His Blessings

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, September 3, 1998

But he doesn't forget any of the San Jose State Spartans -- and he spends a lot of his time while recovering from brain surgery studying the team media guide.

Even though he won't be able to return to his job as the Spartans' color announcer on KLIV (1590 AM) for half a season or more, Ellis considers himself a lucky guy, because -- and this is going to sound strange -- he had a heart attack in April.

The heart attack is a whole story in itself; Ellis, 49, apparently suffered it at the start of an exercise class he was teaching at Gavilan College in San Jose.

"I had all the classic symptoms," Ellis said. "I said, 'Uh oh.' But I still finished the class. I know it sounds dumb, but people who know me aren't surprised."

But Ellis wasn't ready for medical attention yet -- first, he went to see his sons, John and Chris, at a high school golf match in Hollister; only after that did he drive to the hospital and get checked in.

Ellis underwent an angioplasty and thought all was well. But his wife, Peggy, spooked by the heart attack, urged him to get a lump on his skull checked out, too.

Ellis had had the lump, a sizable one, for years. He didn't think much about it, but he always wore a baseball cap because he found it embarrassing. He figured that it couldn't be serious, figured he just had a misshapen skull.

One doctor agreed with that assessment. But Ellis went for further tests, anyway, at the insistence of Peggy.

It wasn't a misshapen skull. It was an enormous tumor -- benign, but so large it was bruising Ellis' brain and, if left alone, would have killed him.

A specialist at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento removed the tumor in two stages: a five-hour procedure, and then an 18-hour procedure; Ellis spent the next six days in a coma.

When he regained consciousness, the doctor told Ellis that it was the biggest tumor he had ever extracted, and that most doctors probably would have just closed him back up after seeing it and told him it couldn't be removed.

"I always tell people it's because I have a little brain, so it had plenty of room to grow," Ellis said.

Ellis can joke about it, even while he's learning to walk again, because he's thankful that his cognitive abilities essentially are unchanged. The former Spartans quarterback (team co-captain, 1971) has been told his motor skills will come back; they're starting to already.

Ellis had been considering taking a sabbatical anyway -- and he's learning more from this experience than anything else he would have done with his time off. At Gavilan, Ellis teaches people with disabilities, and now he knows firsthand about using a wheelchair.

"It was excruciating at first," he said. "In the cafeteria, I couldn't reach the cups, and people were going right past me. I finally had to ask someone if they could stop and help me."

Ellis wanted to be back for San Jose State's September 5 game against Stanford, and he wanted to see John, a senior at Live Oak High School, play in the Northern California Amateur Championship at Spyglass Hill in August. One night, he tried to get up and leave -- but fell, instead, and was assigned a "sitter" to watch him.

"It can be really frustrating -- I thought I'd be running the first week and dancing the second week," Ellis said. "But they keep telling me to be patient."

Now he's hoping to return to the booth for the October 10 homecoming game against Rice, but traveling, especially a November game at Hawaii, is unlikely. The school has hired former NFL quarterback Bob Lee, a onetime college football analyst for ABC, to fill in for Ellis.

"I'm going to miss it a great deal," Ellis said. "I go back a lot of years with that team. And they are going to be very good, very competitive this year. I wouldn't be surprised if they won five or six games."

After 17 years as the team's analyst, however, Ellis doesn't think he'll miss a beat when he does return to the air.

"It's amazing -- once the switch goes on, I'm ready to go," Ellis said. "And I know what I can say: 'Hello, everyone, this is Dave Ellis, back at Spartan Stadium -- a little brain damage, but we'll be OK.' "

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